Costa Rica: transfer account in a mixed economy and under rapidly changing
demographic conditions
Luis Rosero-Bixby, Paola Zúniga-Brenes, Andrea Collado
Acknowledgedments
This research was carried out in the Centro Centroamericano de Poblacion in
collaboration with the Observatorio del Desarrollo both from the University of Costa Rica. It
was partially funded by a IDRC-ECLAC grant. Mariam Cover, Henry Vargas, Carlos Carrillo
and Alexis Kauffman from the Costa Rican Central Bank provided unpublished data and expert
advice on the National Accounts. The National Institute of Statistics and Census (INEC)
provided the micro-data and documentation of the 2004-5 Income and Expenditure Household
Survey. NTA network members provided useful comments and advice, especially Ronald Lee,
Andrew Mason, Timothy Miller, Sang-Hyop Lee, An-Chi Tung, and Amonthep Chawla.
Background of Costa Rica
Costa Rica is a small Central American country with a population of about 4.5 million
inhabitants in a territory close to 20 thousand square miles that makes it the third most densely
populated country in the continental Americas, after El Salvador and Guatemala. Costa Rica
racial and cultural homogeneity, political stability, and a Constitution that abolished its armed
forces in 1949, are distinctive features of the country. In the colonial period, it was one of the
poorest and most out of the way territories of Spanish America. During the beginning of
nationhood, its population constituted a relatively homogeneous society of poor peasants. The
incorporation of the country into world capitalism (in the second half of the 19th century, by
means of coffee exports) was more successful and achieved at a lower social cost than that of the
other countries of the region. During the decade of the 1940s, important social reforms were
carried out, and the old oligarchic model, inspired in the European liberalism, was replaced by a
social-democratic, welfare-oriented system of government. A revolution in 1949 consolidated
democracy and a public sector that has strongly favored social programs in education, labor,
social security, and health (Seligson, 1980). Costa Rica is classified by the World Bank as a
middle income country. Its social development indicators are among the best in the Americas.
Although the country completed the demographic transition, population aging has not taken
place yet.
Costa Rican economy
Costa Rica is considered a textbook case of “mixed” economy in Latin America, halfway
between the Chilean case of market economy and the Cuban case of socialist economy (MesaLago, 2000). The Costa Rican government owns important sectors of the economy, including
banking, telecommunications, insurance, petroleum and even alcohol production, although in the
last two decades the importance of governement in the economy has declined. The public sector
currently hires around 15% of total employment (ILO, 2009). This mixed economy model has
been most successful in achieving social development than economic development.
According to World Bank (2008), the per capita income in Costa Rica is similar to Latin
America average: $5.600 in 2007 ($10,700 PPP). The Costa Rican economy is substantially
more oriented toward the external sector, with exports representing 51% of GDP, compared to
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25% in Latin America. After a severe crisis in 1981, Costa Rica reduced substantially the size of
the government and diversified its exports from a few agricultural products (mostly coffee and
bananas) to a variety of goods and services, including microchips and tourism, the two most
important sources of hard currency nowadays.
GNP growth in Costa Rica has been close to 5% per year on the average since 1990,
compared to a population growth close to 2% per year. This has resulted in a robust, but not
exceptional, economic development. In contrast, during the 1980s, the country went through a
decade of stagnation with GDP growth of 2.4% per year, about the same as the population
growth (World Bank, 2008).
Government revenue is based on indirect taxes. However, taxes are not completely
regressive, because of exemptions in sales taxes and a narrow base of specific consumer taxes
(Zuniga-Brenes, 2008). At the end of the 1980’s the country began a process of economic
liberalization, especially through reduction in tariffs. The Costa Rican fiscal charge (net of social
security) increased from 16.3% to19.8% of GDP, between 1988 and 2004. The composition of
government revenue also changed: particularly reducing dependence from trade taxes, which
declined from 25% of total taxes revenue to 7% in 2004 (Zuniga-Brenes, 2008).
Unemployment is low: 4.6% in 2007 (INEC, 2008), lower than the Latin American
average of 8.7% (UN, 2007). The share of people working in small enterprises (informal sector)
in 2003 was 39% of total employment, below the Latin American average, but above Chile or
Brazil (ILO, 2007).
A rapid increase in participation of women in the labor force has characterized Costa
Rica in the last few decades. While 22% of women aged 20 to 29 participated in the labor force
in 1963 according to the census of that year, in 2005 the corresponding figure is 54% according
to the national household survey of this year.
Historically, Costa Rica has been one of the countries with the lowest inequality income
distribution in Latin Americawith a Gini index of 0.484 in 2007 (CEPAL, 2009). However
inequality has increased in the last two decades.
Costa Rican social development
UNDP ranks Costa Rica 48 in the world (fourth in Latin America) in its Human
Development Index (HDI). However, the country ranks 60 in the economic component of HDI
in contrast with a rank 25 worldwide (first in Latin America) in the life expectancy component of
the Index. Social development indicators in Costa Rica are consistently superior to the indicators
of economic development. Costa Rican achievements in health, education and social security are
in part results of a welfare state with no expenditures in defence or weapons (Mata & RoseroBixby, 1988).
Costa Rica is, with Cuba and Chile, the country with the highest health status in Latin
America. The Costa Rican life expectancy of 79 years at birth is the second highest in the
Americas (Canada is first), higher than in the United States (World Bank, 2008).
Costa Rica has an almost universal public health insurance and care system provided by
the government’s Caja Costarricense del Seguro Social (CCSS, the Costa Rican Social Security
Fund) since 1941. Health insurance, along with retirement and disability insurance, is mandatory
for all workers. Public health insurance covers all health care needs, including prescription
drugs, of the worker and his or her family with services provided free of charge (there are no
copayments) by CCSS health care units. Mandatory payroll-based deductions from employees,
employers, and the government fund the system. For those with no formal jobs, including
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peasants, farmers, petty merchants, or artisans, and those with no-jobs at all, there are two other
ways of getting into the public health insurance and care system of the CCSS: (1) buying
voluntary insurance from the CCSS or (2) being insured by the government, who pays the
premiums to the CCSS for poor or destitute individuals from a special fund (named FODESAF),
established for this purpose in the early 1970s, in a means-tested program (Barahona-Montero,
1999; Durán-Valverde, 2002; PAHO, 2004; and Martinez-Franzoni & Mesa-Lago, 2003).
The Costa Rican public health insurance covers about 90% of the population and about
95% of elderly people (PAHO, 2004). The few uninsured individuals (a self selected healthier
group) can still obtain health care from the CCSS units for a fee or free if institutional social
workers verify the patient has no means of paying. The CCSS is by far the main health insurance
and health care provider in Costa Rica. There is, however, a private sector of health care
providers that includes few hospitals, clinics and laboratories, and a large set of private physician
offices, dentists and pharmacies. People who go to these services usually have to pay out-ofpocket for them. Private health insurance plans are rare and caters to high income households
and employees of transnational companies. Private providers are attractive to people with
enough income to pay for them given that public services may have long waiting lists and
overcrowded clinics and hospitals (PAHO, 2004).
Costa Rica also had a history of high development in education. By the end of XIX
century the country expanded the primary education coverage. As a result of considerable
investments in education the illiteracy rate decrease 75% between 1864 and 1927, reaching
comparable levels to Canada (Molina, 2007). Illiteracy rate (population 15 year and older)
currently is about 4%. Young illiteracy (ages 15-24) is less than 2% (UNESCO, 2008).
Costa Rica has universal coverage in primary education, and in comparison with rest of
Central America, it has the highest secondary net enrolment rate (64% in 2007). However, this
enrolment is below the Latin American average (CEPAL, 2009). The age specific data on the
proportion with complete secondary education from the 2000 census shows steady generational
gains in cohorts born up to about the 1960s, from less than 10% among those born before 1925 o
35% in the 1965 cohort. The early 1980’s crisis stalled, and even reversed, this trend and cohorts
born in the early 1970s dropped to 30% levels with complete high school. Cohorts born in 1980
and later (finishing high school toward the end of 1990s and later), have surpassed the 35%
mark. These generational changes may be important to interpret some age curves in current
transfer accounts, distinguishing age effects from generational effects.
A recent government conditional cash transfer program to keep the young in high school
will probably accelerate the generational gains in the proportion with complete secondary
education and will reduce the gaps between poor and rich populations and rural and urban areas
(PEN, 2008).
In contrast to the health care system, the Costa Rican education system is dual, with
important participation of the private sector in all educational levels (PEN, 2008).
A third leg in Costa Rican social programs is its generous pension system. Among the
population aged 65 and over, 63% receive a pension and an additional 8% are married to a
pensioner. Old-age (or disabled) individuals are entitled to a pension from job contributions,
inheritance, or from a basic, non-contribution system for persons below the poverty line. Close
to one-third of old-age pensions are from the non-contribution system. It is mandatory for all
salary workers and employers to contribute to a social security pension fund. Self-employed
workers also participate in this fund with subsidized contributions. Age of retirement is usually
62 years for women and 65 years for men (special funds such as those for teachers or workers of
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the judicial sector may have younger retirement ages). Another fund (FODESAF) created with a
salary tax paid by employers pays for non-contributive pensions. These are typical pay-as-yougo systems that operate as intergenerational transfers: young generations pay current pensions in
the understanding that in the future their pensions will be paid by younger generations.
However, since the year 2000 there are also complementary pension funds administered for
private or public operators and functioning as individual saving accounts (Mesa-Lago &
Bertranou, 1998; Fernandez & Robles, 2008).
Costa Rican demography and family
Costa Rica essentially completed its demographic transition by 2002, year when its
fertility reached replacement levels (INEC and CCP, 2008). As mentioned, Costa Rican life
expectancy is the second highest in the Americas, higher even than in the USA. The total
fertility rate of 2.00 in 2005 is lower than in the USA (2.04 births) and it is the second lowest in
Latin America after Cuba. Costa Rica is also one of the few Latin American countries with a
substantial stock of international immigrants. Ten percent of the population is foreign born, a
figure not that different to the 12% in the USA (UN Population Division 2006). Because the
demographic transition was so quick and recent, a population aging process has not yet occurred:
Only 5.6% of Costa Ricans are aged 65 and over, although this will change very quickly in the
next few decades, surpassing 20% by the year 2050 (INEC & CCP 2008).
Although demographic aging has no taken place yet in Costa Rica, the age structure of its
population has been changing substantially since fertility started to decline in the 1960s. The
change so far has inflated the center of the age-pyramid and narrowed its base. Children and
youth under 20 years of age, who represented 57% of the population in 1965, are now 38%,
whereas adults in ages 20 to 64, who represented 39% of the 1965 population, are 56% of the
2005 population. In the future and by the year 2050, this percentage of adults will not change,
the proportion of children and youth will further decline to 23% and the elderly population will
increase from the current 6% to 21% (INEC & CCP, 2008). The demographic dependency ratio
in figure 1 summarizes these changes in the age-structure of the population. Two features are
worth noting in the figure: (1) the sharp decline in the demographic dependency ratio from 153%
in 1965 to a floor of 60% in 2020 and a partial recover up to 89% in 2060; and (2) the substantial
change in the composition of age-dependent population: more than 50% of the dependent
population will be elderly individuals by 2050, compared to 6% in 1965 or 13% in 2005. These
huge transformations in the age structure were a key motivation for this study of the transfer
accounts.
[Figure 1 about here]
Intergenerational transfers in Costa Rica are framed by living arrangements in households
where elderly adults often co-reside with their grown up children (Puga et al, 2007). In a
comparative study of Costa Rica, Spain and England, only 10% of Costa Rican elderly live alone
compared to 23% the Spaniards and 33% the English. In contrast, while 57% of Costa Rican
elderly live with a child, the corresponding figures in Spain and England are 27% and 11%. An
important feature of co-residence of parents with grown up children in Costa Rica is that children
are the ones who overwhelmingly (96%) live with their parents (never left the parental household
or returned to it), no the other way around (parents moving to a child’s household). These
patterns are in part dictated by demography: high fertility in the past and the corresponding high
supply of children as well as a young age structure within the elderly population: Costa Ricans
aged 65 and over have five children alive and 70.5 years of age on the average in 2005.
4
Data and methods
Data sources
Transfer accounts require having estimates of accounts’ totals and age profiles. The
micro-data from the most recent Costa Rican Household Income and Expenditure Survey
(ENIGH) were the base to estimate the age profiles, whose totals were adjusted to the National
Income and Product Accounts (SNA) as estimated by the Costa Rican Central Bank.
The National Census and Statistics Institute (INEC) provided the micro-data for
households and individuals of the ENIGH (INEC, 2006). This is a survey to a national
representative sample of 4,200 households and 15,600 individuals, conducted by INEC from
March 2004 to April 2005. The survey provides detailed information about income of the
individuals, including transfers and earnings from assets, use of selected services such as health
and education, and household’s consumption. We modified the original weighting factors of this
survey in order to replicate the Costa Rican population by single ages by December 2004
according to the most recent official estimates (INEC and CCP, 2008). Our estimates of health
and education consumption used additional information about per capita costs in health (CCSS,
2007) and education (MEP, 2007) services.
The data on National Income and Product Accounts and public transfers come from the
Costa Rican Central Bank. We used information for the year 2004 available on the Web (BCCR,
2007). Officers in charge of the SNA at the BCCR provided unpublished estimates of mixed
income, public transfers, asset income, and taxes.
Costa Rican particularities adapting NTA methods
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We identified the individual with the highest income in the household as the household
head and used it instead of the hierarchic household head reported in the survey.
Macro aggregates were adjusted for taxes. Export taxes and subsidies and other taxes
and subsidies to production were allocated to labor and asset income using the rule of 2/3
and 1/3 respectively. Indirect taxes were subtracted from the consumption aggregate.
The operating surplus of incorporated business was estimated by difference between the
reported total operating surplus minus mixed income and household-operating surplus
(imputed rent from owner-occupied housing estimated from the ENIGH).
Education expenditures include formal and informal education by sector (public and
private) and it were allocated within de family based on a regression method. The health
profile was estimated also using a regression method: household’s health expenditures
are regressed on inpatient and outpatients care for age groups.
Consumption of durables (except own house) was not estimated because of lack of proper
information in the ENIGH.
Public transfers from government to households include: i) transfers in kind (public
consumption) and ii) transfers in cash. The transfers in cash came from unpublished data
from BCCR, following SNA codes. We reclassified these transfers according to NTA
groups: i) education, ii) health, iii) social protection, iv) other social protection, v) others,
and vi) rest of the world. We did not take into account health transfers in cash, such as
payments for maternity leave.
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The workers’ contributions to the social security pension and health insurance systems
were considered transfers to the government; i.e. taxes to the salary. The workers
contributions to individual pension funds were considered savings.
Asset based re-allocations were estimated using the NTA methodology. Public asset reallocations follow taxes profiles and private asset re-allocations follow mixed income
plus property income plus household operating surplus age profiles as self-reported in the
ENIGH. Private interest expenditures are based on what people reported to pay for loans
(it includes interest plus payoffs). There is no information about public interest expenses.
The contribution of employers to the social security system and other employer paid
fringe benefits (to IMAS, FODESAF, and INA) were included as proportion of the salary
in the labor income estimates.
Following the NTA methodology, we show some age profiles measured in “income
units”, which are the simple average of labor income in the age bracket 30-49 years. An
income unit in Costa Rica 2004 is US$ 4,724 per capita per year.
The mixed income estimate
A critical issue for Costa Rican estimates of labor income and other accounts was the
lack of data at the aggregated level of “mixed income”, a component of the operating surplus that
is not reported by Costa Rican national accounts.
The System of National Accounts defines “mixed income” as the “surplus or deficit
accruing from production by unincorporated enterprises owned by households…” (UN, 1993). It
should separately account for: i) the return to work and the revenue coming from the production
surplus and ii) assets, liabilities and personal expenses of the owner from those of the firm. It is
therefore a mix of returns to labor and capital that in part should thus be allocated to labor
income estimates in the NTA methodology.
Costa Rican Central Bank publishes data on aggregate operating surplus without showing
its three components: mixed income, operating surplus of corporations, and imputed rent from
owner-occupied housing. Central Bank officers in charge of the national accounts provided us a
preliminary, un-official estimate of mixed income of 445,441 millions of Colones or 15% share
of the net operating surplus (table 1). This figure, however, seemed too low compared to other
Countries in the Americas, except Brazil: 28% share in Chile, 39% in Mexico, 38% in Uruguay,
and 25% in the USA (estimates available in the NTA project by August 2008).
[Table 1 about here]
Given that the un-official Central Bank estimate seemed too low, we generated several
estimates of mixed income from the ENIGH data under selected scenarios or assumptions as
shown in Table 1. These scenarios combine four definitions of unincorporated business and two
allocations of imputed wages, as well as an estimate that considers all independent income in the
survey as mixed income. We chose as the best estimate of mixed income the one from the
ENIGH that considers firms with less than 10 workers as unincorporated businesses and
allocates imputed wages to wages. This estimate results in a 22% share of the operating surplus,
i. e. still below the USA (25%) or Chile (28%).
The amount of life-cycle deficit (as well as other transfer accounts) and the surplus agespan are sensitive to the choice of mixed income estimate. For example, with the Central Bank
estimate, the life cycle deficit would be 9% larger and the surplus age-span of 27 to 54 years
would be the same. With the highest estimate of mixed income (34% share of operating surplus),
the life cycle deficit would be 18% lower and the surplus age-span would be one year earlier and
6
one year later (26-55 years old). An earlier estimate with a different set of assumptions of a
substantially larger mixed income amount resulted in a 43% lower life cycle deficit and a surplus
age span from 24 to 57 years (Rosero-Bixby and Robles, 2008).
Selected Costa Rican results
Table 2 summarizes the estimates of selected transfer accounts for large age groups. It
shows totals and per capita figures, as well as, in the lowest panel, the percentage funding of
consumption. According to these estimates, Costa Rican economy operates with a life cycle
deficit of 3.1 billion dollars ($740 per capita per year), which is about 24% of consumption.
Asset reallocations (asset income and debt, public and private) are the mayor source of deficit’s
funding.
[Table 2 about here]
The only age group with a surplus is 30-49 years. Actually, the exact age-span with a
surplus goes from 27 to 55 years (figure 2A). The deficit for the young (under 30) population is
huge: almost four billion dollars, five times the deficit of about 800 millions for people over 50.
In per capita terms, however, the reverse is true: the deficit of elderly (65 plus) individuals is
37% higher than of individuals under 20. Demography is the driving force that makes that the
lower per capita deficits of the youth result in substantially higher total deficit at early ages in the
Costa Rican economy: there are almost seven under-20 persons for each over-65 persons.
However, as shown in figure 1, this ratio is quickly changing and by the year 2050 it will be one
to one.
Private intergenerational transfers, mostly within the family from parents to children fund
most (73%) of the consumption at young ages (in some more developed countries public
transfers play a bigger role at these ages). That is not the case at old ages in which direct
transfers from children to parents are, on balance, non-existing. Public transfers of a generous
pension and health care system pay half the consumption (two thirds of the deficit) of elderly
Costa Ricans. In contrast with other societies, such as Taiwan, where direct transfers from
children to parents pay as much as 40%, or even 50%, of consumption of the elderly population.
This reliance in public transfers of elderly Costa Ricans has been possible until now because of a
relatively small size of this population. As population aging is quickly occurring, one wonders
whether this Costa Rican model will be sustainable.
Asset reallocations resulted surprisingly important in Costa Rican society. Even among
relatively young adults net asset income adds substantially to labor income (29% in the age
bracket 30-49 and 49% in 50-64). The highest per capita values occur at pre-retirement ages.
About one-fourth of consumption of the elderly population is funded by returns from savings and
investments made early in live (or inherited assets). Although this figure is not as high as in
more developed economies, where often is above 50%, it is high enough to suggest that asset
accumulation is substantial in Costa Rica and it could be an important force for economic growth
in the future as population gets older, in what is known as the “second demographic dividend”.
The age-span in which average Costa Ricans on average earn from labor more than they
consume is surprisingly narrow: only twenty-eight years from the ages 27 to 55 (Figure 2-A). In
other more traditional societies a surplus shows up at substantially younger ages. In both less
and more developed societies the surplus of labor income over consumption often continue well
above age 60. This narrow surplus age span is in part result of the welfare-state model of
development followed by Costa Rica. Generational effects might also influence it: the earning
potential of older generations was somehow limited by their relatively low educational levels
7
compared to their children as well as by their substantially lower participation of women in the
labor force.
[Figure 2 about here]
Generation effects (as opposed to aging effects) may also be the explanation for the
peculiar shape of the consumption curve at middle ages. The depression in per capita
consumption among individuals in their late 30s and 40s might be an echo of the economic crisis
of the early 1980s that could shape their consumer behavior when they were adolescents or
young adults. Certainly, some of these cohorts have substantially lower than expected
educational levels as mentioned before.
Part B of Figure 2 shows for the government the equivalent of the life-cycle deficit.
Surplus ages, in which individuals pay more in taxes than the public transfers they receive, go
from 22 to 57 years. The ending surplus age is somehow low because of generous government
transfers to older individuals and also because of limited taxation of wealth in Costa Rica. These
two elements cause also huge per capita deficits at old ages. In contrast, the government deficit
at young ages is relatively small, a reflection of the somehow limited expenditures in public
education and the big role of families fulfilling consumption needs of the young. Because of this
relatively smaller deficit, the sharp decline in the demographic dependency ratio that has taken
place in Costa Rica (Figure 1) has probably benefited less to government than to the families in
what is known as the “first demographic dividend”. By the same token, the big deficits at old
ages will result in negative demographic dividends for the government sooner than for families
(Rosero-Bixby and Robles, 2008).
Figure 3 summarizes the Costa Rican consumption structure. It shows that at the “private
other” (food, housing, clothing, recreation and so on) component of consumption is the most
important at all ages. This “private other” component of consumption is the responsible for the
aforementioned depression in the curve of individuals at middle ages. Costa Rican public health
and education consumption is substantially more important than the private ones. The figure
also illustrates the growing importance of health consumption, particularly public health, with
aging.
[Figure 3 about here]
Conclusions on Costa Rican estimates
The most striking findings in the Costa Rican transfer accounts are: (1) the big role of
government transfers to support consumption and deficits of the elderly population; (2)
correspondently, the lack of net transfers from children to old parents; (3) the substantial intrageneration income reallocations, especially as source of income at pre-retirement ages; (4) the
narrow age span with a surplus, especially the early age (55 years) at which Costa Ricans start
having a labor income deficit; (5) the peculiar depression in the consumption curve at middle
adult ages that could be a reflection of generational effects of the 1980s economic crisis; and (6)
the huge absolute deficit at young ages driven by a population age structure that is still mostly
young.
Some of these results are manifestations of a welfare-oriented type of government in this
middle-income country with a mixed economy, which has been able to achieve some outstanding
levels of social development, especially in the health and social security safety net of its elderly
population.
The sustainability of some of the Costa Rican achievements and practices is, however,
challenged by a rapid process of population ageing that will occur in the next few decades.
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Big demographic transformations in the age structure and generational balances also offer
windows of opportunity for Costa Rica. The precipitous reduction in the young people
component of the dependency ratio has probably improved the well being of Costa Ricans,
especially within families where most transfers took place to fund the deficit of the young. This
is known as the first demographic dividend, which could be amplified if government and
families take advantage of it by investing in human capital. A second demographic dividend
may also occur with the inflation of the population in pre-retirement ages and some older ages,
whose accumulated assets could be invested in the formation of physical capital to improve labor
productivity.
Although international and over-time comparisons in this book show that the age profiles
of the life-cycle deficit, intergenerational transfers and intra-generational reallocations are rather
stable, they are not immutable. Policy makers can modify them, particularly public transfers and
taxes, to take advantage of opportunities and ameliorate risks brought about by the rapid change
in population age structures. There is also the issue that these age-profiles do not reflect pure
aging effects but also generational changes that by definition will modify cross-sectional age
profiles at several points in time.
9
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12
Table 1. Estimates of mixed income under selected scenarios
A
1
2
3
4
B
1
2
3
4
C
445,441
As share of
operating
surplus
15%
639,011
669,233
424,172
397,791
22%
23%
14%
13%
895,622
968,173
669,223
397,791
1,011,264
30%
33%
23%
13%
34%
Colones
(millions)
Scenarios
Central Bank estimate
ENIGH-based estimates
Deducted salary allocated to wages
Firms with less than 10 workers
Firm with less than 30 workers
Firms registered in the National Registry
Firms with formal accounting
The imputed wage is allocated to both
Firms with less than 10 workers
Firm with less than 30 workers
Firms registered in the National Registry
Firms with formal accounting
All independent income from the survey
13
Table 2. The life cycle deficit by age groups. Costa Rica 2004
Total
30-49
50-64
Population (thousands)
4,232 1,634
751 1,168
Distribution (percentage)
100
39
18
28
Totals (millions of 2004 US$)
Life-cycle deficit
3,130 3,383
508 -1,555
Consumption
12,815 3,621 2,640 3,949
Labor Income
9,685
238 2,132 5,504
435
10
245
6
102
1,696
1,594
692
909
217
102
784
-682
-1
-681
692
246
446
458
-13
Life-cycle reallocations
Asset reallocations
Net transfers
Domestic public transfers
Private transfers
Life-cycle deficit
Consumption
Labor Income
Work
Asset reallocations
Private transfers
Public transfers
3,130 3,383
2,923 -101
207 3,485
6
833
201 2,651
20-29
508
406
102
-252
354
-1,555
1,589
-3,143
-1,032
-2,112
Per capita (thousands of 2004 US$)
740 2,070
676 -1,332
3,028 2,216 3,516 3,382
2,289
145 2,840 4,714
Life-cycle reallocations
Asset reallocations
Net transfers
Domestic public transfers
Private transfers
Consumption
0-19
740 2,070
691
-62
49 2,132
1
510
47 1,622
7
-3
73
23
234 2,827
3,902 3,713
3,668
886
676 -1,332
234 2,827
540 1,360 1,803 1,007
136 -2,692 -1,569 1,820
-336
-884
-3 1,872
472 -1,808 -1,566
-51
Financing consumption (percentages)
100
100
100
100
76
23
2
0
65+
81
15
13
-10
14
139
40
-53
-26
100
100
94
46
-40
0
24
27
-1
50
Figure 1. The demographic dependency ratio. Costa Rica, 1970-2060
Dependency ratio %
150
Age 65 +
Age < 20
100
50
1970
197
0
197
5
1980
198
0
198
5
1990
199
0
199
5
2000
200
0
200
5
201
0
201
5
2020
202
0
202
5
203
0
203
5
2040
204
0
15
204
5
205
0
205
5
2060
206
0
0
Figure 2. The life cycle deficit for the population and the government. Costa Rica 2004.
A. The Popu lati on
Inc ome units*
Labor inc ome
1
Cons umption
.8
.6
.4
.2
0
B. The governm ent
.6
Revenues
Transfers
.5
.4
.3
.2
.1
0
0
10
20
30
40
50
Age
* Average income at ages 30-49 = US$ 4,124 per year
16
60
70
80
90
Figure 3. Components of per capita consumption by age. Costa Rica 2004
Income units
1
.8
.6
.4
.2
0
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
Age
Private educ.
Private health
Private other
Public educ.
Public health
Public other
17
90